The compendium of motocross protests

Believe it was 2002-2003, there was a Mega Series race at Sunday Creek. Osborne was on 85’s at the time, Russell decided to run a hare scramble leading into the weekend so naturally Osborne rode it. Cory Butrick who was a phenom in the off-road world was as well on a 85. They go to the line no one says a word and they line up side by side. Race was a bit muddy. Osborne beats him rather easily which was quite the surprise give how talented Butrick was. After the race Osborne gets protested for having a big wheel kit. Loses the win, but from that moment on everyone knew the kid was legit in the off-road world. He lapped me like I was a stick in the mud. Never forget the sound of that KTM

A friend of mine lost out on a 125cc stock win at the Mini O's in the late '90s because someone protested his stock motor. (It was full, completely, bone stock.) The teardown went like this: 1) bike was sent to the impound area, 2) baseball cap-clad random dude looks at the barrel and states "it doesn't look stock," and 3) said friend was DQed. 

Now, I don't know about the usual reliability of the naked-eyed Florida Man to be able to discern between stock and modified engine parts, but he got this one wrong. 

My faovrite protest related story was in the 2004/2005ish era. At the Walton Trans Can race in Canada (our Loretta Lynns style amateur event) there was a dad in the Supermini class that was pretty hardcore. His kid was a 6-10 place rider at the event. Before the last moto of the 3 moto format, the dad goes up to the race official with cash in hand and says "I want the top 5 bikes overall torn down" The last moto takes off and there is a huge pile up where most of the top contenders go down, a couple of them are hurt, a couple have major bike damage. The protesting dads son sneaks through the pile up unscathed and goes on to have his best moto of the week with a third or something like that with the majority of his faster competiton out of the picture for that moto. I dont remeber the exact details but he ends up going like 6-8-3 in his motos for 5th overall in the championship. The dad started sweating big time and was trying to remove his personal bike out of the protest. The other dads caught on and said screw that! They made sure his was included in the top 5 tear down. Turns out his bike was the only illegal one of the bunch! Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

A fat slow vet friend of mine went from his 250 to his 125 years ago from Moto 1 to moto 2 due to a flat. Some peckerwood protested it.  Against the rules technically yes, but it was a fat guy switching to a slower bike!